NLRB chief approved, but other battles loom

Wednesday

Oct 30, 2013 at 12:01 AMOct 30, 2013 at 11:03 AM

WASHINGTON - The Senate approved President Barack Obama's pick for a top post at the National Labor Relations Board yesterday, but the chamber approached showdowns over other nominees that were starting to revive the partisan rancor a similar fight ignited last summer.

WASHINGTON — The Senate approved President Barack Obama’s pick for a top post at the National Labor Relations Board yesterday, but the chamber approached showdowns over other nominees that were starting to revive the partisan rancor a similar fight ignited last summer.

In the key roll call, senators voted 62-37 to end Republican delaying tactics against Richard Griffin, whom Obama nominated to be NLRB general counsel. Senators then confirmed the appointment on a near-party-line 55-44 tally.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., planned votes in coming days aimed at halting what he said were GOP roadblocks against six other nominations.

The most controversial are Obama’s picks of Patricia Millett to join the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Republicans said Reid and Obama are trying to tilt the partisan balance of the D.C. appeals court’s judges, now 4-4, toward Democrats with Millett’s nomination. That court, which gets involved in many cases involving federal regulations, is considered by many to be the second-most-powerful federal court, behind only the Supreme Court.

“The majority leader and his allies are attempting to pack the court with judges who will rubber-stamp their big-government agenda,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s No. 2 GOP leader.

Besides Millett, Obama has also nominated lawyer and law professor Cornelia “Nina” Pillard and U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins to fill the D.C. appeals court’s three vacancies.

Republicans said this week that they opposed Griffin, a Democrat and longtime labor lawyer, because the NLRB has become too pro-union. The agency’s general counsel investigates and prosecutes cases before the board.

Watt seemed a long shot to win approval. Obama wants him to head the housing agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the huge government-controlled companies that own or guarantee about half of U.S. mortgages. Critics say the longtime congressional veteran lacks the technical expertise to head the agency and won’t be politically impartial, charges that Democrats deny.